Mississippi John Hurt

"I wasn't allowed to bother Mr. Carson's guitar. I would wait until he feel asleep at my house, then I would slip his guitar into my room and try to play. There I learned to play the guitar at the age of nine years old. After that, my mother bought me a second hand guitar at the price of $1.50! 1 can tell you there was no beautiful sound than my own guitar. I was playing for country dances at the same time working very hard on a farm near Avalon, Mississippi."

Sleepy John Estes

"Now, Mist' Clark is a good lawyer, he good as I ever seen/
He's the first man that prove that water run upstream/
Boys, you know I like Mist' Clark, yes, he really is my friend/
He say if I just stay out the grave, poor John, I see you won't go to the pen..."

Mailman Blues

Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintock

Hobo, brakeman, sailor, gospel singer, goldminer, mule driver, trade unionist, radio DJ, actor, veteran of the Boxer Rebellion and the Spanish-American War - Mr Harry McClintock the Great American Bum.



“When I was fourteen I ran away from home to join the Gentry Bros. Dog and Pony Show. When season ended, I hoboed to New Orleans where I was lucky enough to meet Captain and owner of a small stern-wheeler steamer that was laid up for the winter...

“It was in New Orleans that I found singing in saloons could be profitable. A bunch of Limey sailors were having a bit of a sing-song and I ventured in and shared in one of the choruses. I was immediately asked to grab a glass and sit it. Someone called on me for a song and I obliged. I scored a hit. I sang, it seemed, for hours. I'll never know how I got back to the boat, but in the morning I shook something like three bucks in nickles, dimes and quarters out of my pockets. I had made a discovery that shaped my life. No one who can sing need ever go hungry. They kept dropping coins in my pockets.”

- Bluegrass Messengers

Norfolk Jubilee Quartette

Norfolk Jubilee Quartette - Daniel in the Lions' Den

Son House

Don't never follow your first mind, cause that's the one that's wrong. 'Cause the Devil beats God to you every time.

John the Revelator

Death Letter Blues

Yonder Comes the Blues

Jack White on Son House

Elizabeth Cotten

Nobody did teach me, everything I know, I learned all by myself, so, I give myself all of the credit.

Shake Sugaree

Mama, Your Papa Loves You

Spanish Flang Dang / Untitled Jig

Who is the Masked Marvel?

Mississippi Boll Weevill Blues by The Masked Marvel ?!?

Bessie Smith

No time to marry, no time to settle down; I'm a young woman, and I ain't done runnin' around.

Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Send Me To The 'Lectric Chair

Reverend Gary Davis - Children of Zion

"There is absolutely no controlling or guiding him. He says what he pleases, when he pleases to say it, all very pontifically. I think the resemblance to the authoritative African wise man or witch doctor is striking... Rev. Davis is a wonderful, poetic, old gentleman. He is also as bitter and grieved a ghost of human decency and dignity as ever haunted this weary strumpeted old earth."

Death Don't Have No Mercy

The Bill Broonzy Story

I guess all songs is folk songs. I never heard no horse sing 'em.

Key to the Highway

Skip James - Crow Jane

He was quite... almost mysterious... full of spirits... he could be both... he could be lively. Down in Newport... he was so nervous... he was scared shitless. That’s probably the quietest I ever seen him. He could rub people the wrong way. But I was on his good side. I never gave him any argument. I tell you the truth, he liked those %$#@houses and drank a lot... I asked my mom as a young kid what that was. She said, “It gave him the spirit”

Hard Time Killin' Blues

Devil Got My Woman

Victor Records

Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - Naptown Blues 1929-1934

Whiskey Is My Habit, Good Women Is All I Crave

How About Me

When the Sun Goes Down

Blind Lemon Jefferson

They were rough. Men were hustling women and selling bootleg and Lemon was singing for them all night... he'd start singing about eight and go on until four in the morning... mostly it would be just him sitting there and playing and singing all night.

See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

The Essential Pete Seeger

I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.

Chaconne

The Sinking of the Reuben James

Round Round Hitler's Grave

"Say, I hear you play a pretty mean guitar..."

Charlie Patton by Mr Robert Crumb